The Stockholm-based payment hopes to strike partnership deals that would integrate Klarna’s payments infrastructure with services such as Apple Pay and Android Pay as they continue their global rollout.
“One of the major challenges facing Google and Apple is the fact that all banks are local,” says Mr. Siemiatkowski in an interview with Swedish tech news site Di Digital, an online subsidiary of Scandinavia’s largest business daily, Dagens Industri.
“Scratch the surface and you will find that even global banks have different software system and different ways of organizing themselves. When global players cooperate with banks, roll out of their services are inert. That is not how they want to operate, they want to be global from day one,” he says, describing Klarna’s presence in 18 countries as “unique.”
“No one else covers as many countries within payment and credit related services”, he says.
The CEO of Klarna, a company valued at over $2 billion in a 2015 funding round, claims he has caught the eye of the US tech giants and that they have noted Klarna's expansion into markets beyond Sweden.
Mr. Siemiatkowski argues that Klarna will be able to offer US tech companies a wider range of services than the credit card companies to which many of them are already linked.
“Should Google want to offer their customers an integrated mobile bank service, an account could be in place in the cell phone from the very beginning. Who could offer such a solution today? Nobody covers as many markets as Klarna,” he says.
Some of Klarna’s 1,400 employees are located in Silicon Valley. Mr Siemiatkowski claims a set up with a partner such as Google would take six to twelve months. The Klarna chief expects Facebook to launch its own payment service and says a partnership with the social network is likely to materialize.
”I’m not sure if we can establish a partnership with Apple, but it is likely with Google and Facebook”, says Mr Siemiatkowski.
